New Offering Launch - Oracle Boosts Developer Velocity with Autonomous JSON Database

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

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More Time to Code, Less Time Lost on Admin/Ops

Introduction

Oracle introduced a new offering of its technology stack on August 13, 2020: Autonomous JSON Database. Autonomous JSON Database joins the growing autonomous product family at Oracle, which already includes the Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Autonomous Linux and Oracle Autonomous Data Guard. 

This blog post looks at Oracle Autonomous JSON Database's impact on developer productivity and how the new offering can boost a key developer satisfaction driver: velocity. 

Why Does Developer Velocity Matter?

The overused headline "Software Eats the World" usually omits the fact that a lot of developer "blood, sweat and tears" are behind the software that powers enterprises' next-generation applications.

And as the demands for building more software ramp up, the complexities of the associated technology stacks grow even faster. Luckily, there is more training and learning available for developers; unfortunately, though, there is typically less training time available. Today, it is important to understand that the creation of the DevOps function has not insulated developers well enough from nonproductive work. Simply put, DevOps teams are as overwhelmed as developers in trying to keep the software-powered revolution going. Meanwhile, legions of developers have come to understand that when they cannot learn new technologies on the job, they need to learn new capabilities on their own time and dime. And while some of that gives developers the much-needed freedom to explore, learn and tinker, it may constrain their long-term marketability.

At the end of the day, what matters is how fast developers can provide good code that aligns with both the specification and the performance requirements of the application in production. The concept of developer velocity is a relatively new term, but it aptly describes the demand that is now put on developers. Meanwhile, it is important to understand that developer velocity is situational and is based on experience, training, know-how and general talents. So, developers who strive to remain good, or even become better, are pressed to increase their maximum velocity with additional training and education (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Developer Velocity Defined

 

 

Source: Constellation Research

Finally, the key determinant of developer velocity is the time available to code. The more time that developers have to write, review and test code, the more productive code they can deliver. For decades, the focus has been to improve developer productivity when they code. And that is a key factor, but even more potential can be derived by giving developers more time to code. This means the elimination of noncoding tasks. Associated noncoding time spent needs to be examined and, ideally, reduced to a minimum.

One of the key perils of the developer job is that when new technologies are involved in a project, the developers often become the first ones in an enterprise to master the operation of the overall technology. That is natural, as they deal with the technology first and—initially, at least—the most. Unfortunately, though, all too often they are drawn into long-term managing, maintaining and scaling operational tasks around the technology of their projects. Developers too often step into the "experience trap"—the capture of the most experienced resources on operational tasks keeping them from their real job: writing and reviewing code.

And while developers are obliged to do their part to not get caught in the perils of the developer job or the experience trap, their enterprise also has to empower them to use platforms that avoid both challenges, through inherent capabilities. Recent innovation in the self-driving or autonomous product category makes this possible.

 What Is the Oracle Autonomous JSON Database Service?

Oracle has been steadily building out its autonomous software road map, having released Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Autonomous Linux and Autonomous Data Guard. Now the Autonomous JSON Database joins the family of autonomous products.

Specifically, Oracle Autonomous JSON Database is a cloud service that addresses the JSON developer community. It uses native JSON storage and is a fast and scalable service, using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Most importantly, it allows use of both non-SQL, document-centric code assets and SQL-centric code assets, and it provides simple document APIs for programming languages via REST or the command line interface. Contrary to widespread expectations regarding an Oracle Database product/service, SQL is not required to use the Autonomous JSON Database (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Autonomous JSON Service

 

 

Source: Oracle

There have been long debates regarding the right way to access document-centric JSON databases. Oracle is taking a balanced approach, allowing developers to access the Autonomous JSON Database service as they prefer, either with a document-centric language via Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA) or via SQL.

SODA is an easy-to-learn language construct that plugs into popular Java, JavaScript/Node.js, Python, PL/SQL and C programs (and more via language drivers or RESTful web services). For the SQL camp, Oracle provides its proven SQL engine that comes with ISO SQL/JSON support and the command line interface with SQLcl, which allows powerful in-line editing, statement completion and command recall  (see Figure 3). 

 

Figure 3. How Oracle SODA Plugs into Important Popular Programming Languages

Rethinking the Professional Services Organization Post-2020

Dion Hinchcliffe

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Title: About Dion Hinchcliffe Dion Hinchcliffe is an internationally recognized business strategist, bestselling author, enterprise architect, industry analyst, and noted keynote speaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in digital strategy, the future of work, and enterprise IT. He works with the leadership teams of large enterprises as well as software vendors to raise the bar for the art-of-the-possible in their digital capabilities. He is currently Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. Dion is also currently an executive fellow at the Tuck School of Business Center for Digital Strategies. He is a globally recognized industry expert on the topics of digital transformation, digital workplace, enterprise collaboration, API…...

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In 2020 professional services organizations (PSOs) are profoundly experiencing at least three different and substantial disruptions to their business, and often several secondary ones as well.

It was the arrival of COVID-19 earlier this year that led to lockdowns around the globe that have curtailed client demand and hampered project delivery. Those same lockdowns have also restricted project staff to their homes for the most part, slowing down client projects and impacting billable work. Finally, a rising economic downturn is wreaking havoc both in client budgets as well as the PSO firms’ own finances, leading to urgent calls for cost cutting and new efficiencies.

It’s the proverbial perfect storm of major challenges and it’s leading to a dramatic impact on customer success as well as affecting morale of the talent base in most PSOs. This has resulted in calls for a widespread push within firms to rapidly rethink and update their operating models to determine the right mitigations and respond effectively.

Except, as many have found, responding quickly and effectively to these challenges is hard to do when so much uncontrolled change is currently taking place.

In fact, many PSOs will be tempted to focus first on cost control to ensure short-term survival. While this is a natural response that does offer immediate and tangible control over a once-in-a-lifetime event filled with uncertainty, organizations must also remain mindful of the vital characteristics of professional services firms. Overly enthusiastic responses to this year’s disruptions can adversely impact the organizations strategic operating model long term.

Sustaining a Bridge to a Better Future

The risk is in affecting the overarching characteristics of professional services firms. In particular, it is two stand-out characteristics that make them unique in the industry: One is the nature of the highly bespoke work they do that is especially tailored for each client regardless of tools, services model or data. The second is the special nature of cultivating successful long-term client relationships. Both of these characteristics require intensive and skilled delivery capabilities. Finally, underpinning both of these foundational characteristics is the high leverage human capital model that determines both revenue and profit for the PSO, and which needs to be finely tuned across the many layers of the organization.

This was a painful lesson learned across the PSO industry from the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Decisions made too expediently negatively impacted firms long after the crisis had passed.  Studies have shown that decisions to reduce talent or cut compensation and billable time affected their client relationships as well their brand image for many years. Conversely, the firms that weathered the short-term pressure and managed to keep hard-to-replace human capital prospered as the economy recovered. In this same vein, organizations with a clear sense of the type of PSO that must emerge from the veil of 2020 — and what it will take to thrive in the resulting market conditions — will be in the best position to prosper.

Figure 1: The Pre-2020 Model of PSOs is Giving Way to a New Client/Talent Focused Model

Priorities First: Update the Firm to Reflect New Realities

It’s therefore paramount that any cost control discussions be viewed through the constructive lens of the organization’s business and talent strategy, along with its future operating model. In order to be able to do that, the business must first recalibrate their core strategy and execution with today’s fresh realities in mind:

• Clients are going to be much more selective and demanding about projects going forward
• Deal flows and talent sourcing will be more turbulent until well after the pandemic passes
• Delivery talent will require better enablement and support for their new daily work realities
• Major opportunities now exist in creating a more holistic and dynamic PSO operating model that can cost less and with less talent loss, while actually increasing margin
• Significant new types of business and growth opportunities have come within reach to offset recent revenue impacts

In other words, there are major prospects to do more than just survive through brute force cost cutting. Instead, more elegant solutions afford themselves if first the PSO will engage in a rapid rethinking through a view of the current the art-of-the-possible. In essence, a combined business and digital transformation. This transformation will generally consist of a combination of bold new ideas, better integration and consolidation of operational activities, and powerful new technology tools including automation, holistic user experience upgrades, and powerful new concepts from the realm of digital business.

The Evolution of the PSO Through Proactive, Targeted Transformation

As it turns out, the typical PSO has been experiencing quite a bit of change in the last couple of years anyway. Trends like more dynamic staffing approaches, better automation of delivery, more project analytics and diagnostics, have all led to improved services, higher margins, and greater customer success. Often led initially by technology, which has led to simultaneous advances in re-imagining the operational models of PSOs through new capabilities, a new type of PSO is emerging that is more agile, lean, digitally-infused, and experience-centric.

Driven by industry trends, technology innovations, and changes in the world, below are the types of key shifts that are being seen in PSO organizations as a result of the events in 2020. These trends are grouped into three categories, focusing on the business/clients, the worker, and overall health and wellbeing of all PSO stakeholders.

The Business of PS: Trends

• Predictive operations. Projects are becoming instrumented well enough today while sufficient historical project baseline data is now available to routinely predict risks and anticipating opportunities before they actually happen. Using these insights can lead to significant cost savings, higher success rates, and quality improvements.
• M&A support. A wave of mergers and acquisitions will inevitably occur out of the events of 2020, particularly of smaller PS firms. PSOs that have sophisticated infrastructure and processes for managing the financial, operational, and structural merging of clients will have an advantage.
• Large portfolio management. Most PSO are not taking advantage of the ability to manage large portfolios of projects across a client to maximize talent reuse, achieve economies of scale, and improve delivery.
• Next-generation client engagement. As the industry becomes hypercompetitive, the time is right for a more engaging, sustained, informative, and transparent connection to the client using a combination of technology, user experience, and real-time data flows. This higher quality delivery approach will result in increase of project share within clients against other PSO firms.
• New growth models. Most PSOs have readily accessible untapped growth opportunities which they can add to their existing portfolios to increase sales.
• New business models. The time is ripe for PSOs to lateral over into adjacent business models such as subscriptions, IP licensing, strategic data services, and annual recurring revenue that can provide vital new green fields for resilience and expansion

The PS Career: Trends

• Smart recruitment. New models exist for recruiting and project matching via AI, while talent screening and the pre/onboarding process can be made more intelligent and automated. This will drive bottom-line business benefits while also increasing acquisition and retention.
• Better talent experience. The top workers will have expectations of a general return to the quality of work life they had prior to 2020. PSOs that proactively deliver on this in remote work scenarios while also uplevelling the overall worker experience will have significant retention benefits.
• Learning the future of PS. The existential changes and new opportunities in the PSO world must be better communicated to workers, so they can help realize as well as reap the benefits enumerated here.
• Hybrid talent sourcing. New dynamic staffing models — aka the Gig Economy for professional services — will mix with full-time employment to create much stronger teams that are also more cost contoured while attracting new types of diverse talent.

Health and Wellbeing: Trends

• Delivery team engagement. Creating enabling and more connected working environments in the new remote work situation particularly for delivery teams is essential to preserve a connection to the “mothership” while also nurturing workers through the tough and challenging times.
• Wellbeing tracking. Tools and processes that track the physical, mental, and psychological health of PSO stakeholders, from project staff, back office, and clients — and provide appropriate assistance when needed — will be increasingly expected and has already become a hallmark of best-in-class employers.

In summary, PSOs have a historic opportunity to pivot to adapt to the significant disruptions they have faced so far in 2020. By adopting an updated operating model and quickly delivering on it with clients and talent using new solutions, PSOs can avoid the most damaging types of cost cutting while being positioned for growth in 2021 and beyond. That is, as long as they are willing to think outside the box and adopt sensible yet far-reaching shifts in their strategies, tools, and operating models.

Additional Reading

How the Gig Economy is Transforming Work in the Enterprise

A Blueprint for a Post-Pandemic CIO Playbook

It's Time to Think About the Post-2020 Employee Experience

How Professional Work Will Evolve in a Digital Post-Pandemic Society

Revisiting How to Cultivate Connected Organizations in an Age of Coronavirus

My 2020 Predictions for the Future of Work

Working in a coronavirus world: Strategies and tools for staying productive | ZDNet

Creating the Modern Digital Workplace and Employee Experience

The Challenging State of Employee Experience and Digital Workplace Today

Time to Make a More Meaningful Meatball

Liz Miller

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

About Liz Miller: Liz Miller is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation, focused on the org-wide team sport known as customer experience. While covering CX as an enterprise strategy, Miller spends time zeroing in on the functional demands of Marketing and Service and the evolving role of the Chief Marketing Officer, the rise of the Chief Experience Officer, the evolution of customer engagement, and the rising requirement for a new security posture that accounts for the threat to brand trust in this age of AI. With over 30 years of marketing experience, Miller offers strategic guidance on the leadership, business transformation, and technology requirements to deliver on today’s CX strategies. She has worked with global marketing organizations to transform everything from…...

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Meatballs are serious business. If you care not for your life, ask any Italian family about their Nonna’s meatballs…and then make suggestions on how they could “be better.” I love meatballs of any number of ethnic origins. Italian (of both the Americanized and original polpette variety). Swedish. Kofta. Albondigas. Bò viên. All delicious, although I will take a pass on the South African skilpadjies and the whole let’s wrap minced heart in liver and then wrap it in fat thing.

There is a world of difference between the meatballs of the world, from density to complexity. Yes…all involve meat that is shaped into a ball. But all have different uses, sauces, binding agents, spices and even spiciness.

So…

Why is it that when corporate America decided to make its own meatball, aka the infamous meatball chart, we managed to make it in one flavor with only one note? Why are corporate meatballs dry, bland and only have one application?

Think about the last meatball chart you developed. I’d wager (and I’m sitting here hoping I am wrong) that it was for a sales enablement application (i.e. a brochure, powerpoint preso, webpage) and it compared product features and functions. Sure, maybe the features and individual comparisons were slightly different, but for the most part your line up of meatballs was vastly larger and more exciting than “theirs”.

These meatballs are fine for those sales enablement moments where customers need that quick visual outline of “what feature/price do I get with you versus them.” But we need to start thinking beyond this basic meatball to get to something far more flavorful and filling for both our internal teams and customers alike.

The Messaging Meatball

We all know about the meatball chart Marketing is asked to create that compare features and functions. But have you created a chart that tracks and compares WHAT your competitors say about themselves…you know…what they are “really” trying to sell. The reality of selling is that customers rarely “buy” what we believe we “sell” because customers buy more than products, features and attributes carefully collected in a PIM.

The act of developing a competitive messaging matrix forces those who compile it and consume it to realize the extent to which a customer is being forced to listen to 100 iterations of the exact same message. When every solution uses the same 20 words, rearranged and dressed up in 100 different ways, the end result is a sea of same-ness that drives buyers to wonder why they are even bothering to look around.

Ever wonder why influencers, peer reviews and editorial writeups tend to top the list of content buyers in enterprise technology find most compelling and useful? I believe that in part, it is because it actually doesn’t sound identical! Influencers don’t conform to the language of the products they are reviewing in the same way peers and friends don’t just adopt tag lines, hero messages and vision statements into how they would describe their own experiences with a product. But head over to vendor websites…apparently everyone used the same Cliffs Notes and are sharing a rhyming dictionary.

To break out of this unintentional mold, you need to see it first…then decide to rise above it.

The Global Meatball

An albondigas is vastly different from a polpette. Both are round. Both made of meat. Both have a binding agent to hold it together. You wouldn’t dare call them the same. From the texture to the seasoning and the way eating them make you feel, what makes each differently delicious is a feature that deserves celebration. That same difference, that same nuance, is far too often missed when we launch our messaging around the globe. We assume that every message is the same and will be received in the same way wherever it lands.

I’ve always advocated for that single song sheet of core brand messages that can be embraced across an organization and across an organization’s global footprint. These shouldn’t be “brand police talking points” but rather the themes and the sound bites that resonate internally so that they can be shared externally. Key to this is embracing that global teams are far more adept at localization than HQ’s messaging task force – no matter how terrific and talented the task force may be.

I’ve seen far too many exercises in developing terrific messaging at the global-HQ level be totally lost on global teams. Brands can end up in a situation where global voices were never involved in the development of the messages, or the egos and power-politics of HQ forced the teams on the ground to hide the “locally relevant” message translations from the HQ watchdogs. The most miraculous exercises in messaging will be forever lost to ego if you let it.

Instead of playing the game of brand police cat and mouse, embrace the diversity of the customer and their ears that these messages are intended to woo. Allow for cultural and regional diversity to flavor your meatballs. If you crafted the meatball base recipe correctly, you should be able to flavor each batch to reflect the differences of each audience without the customer losing sight of the delicious meatball they are consuming.

Should It Really Be a Burger?

Have you ever started cooking something only to realize that you weren’t going to end up with what you set out to cook? Take that one meatball where there is just TOO much meat…so you flatten that sucker out, toss it on the grill and voila…it’s burger time instead. (In my house it is more like I set out wanting meatloaf, everyone groaned and whined, but somehow, everyone accepts the meatball incarnation.)

As you embark on your messaging exercises, don’t be afraid of ashamed of switching up the output once you assemble your ingredients. This isn’t chemistry. Nothing blows up if you dabble here, mix it up there. Maybe you started out working on messaging around a product only to realize your brand is lost in a morass of industry-wide jargon so you actually need to get a bit more fundamental and foundational…you need to add more meat…turn your meatball exercise into the whole meatloaf.

The point of any messaging exercise shouldn’t be to “get more messaging.” That’s about as helpful to driving business forward as changing the color of your logo to boost lead acquisition. The point SHOULD be to gather as much input from as many critical sources as possible and being unafraid and unencumbered to change course just so long as that course still has customer as the destination. Sure, you might start out making a meatball chart. But you need to be aware enough about the needs of the business and of the customer to identify the need, demand or necessity to turn that meatball into a burger from time to time.

There IS Such Thing as a BAD Meatball

Just because you make it, doesn’t mean your customers like the taste and want more. If there is anything that messaging and marketing thru the global pandemic has taught us as marketers it is that despite our best intentions, not all words are received as we would like them to be. While we set out with messages of support and togetherness, soon our customers were taking to Twitter with social eye rolls and more than a few moments of mocking what came across as insincerity. The exercise isn’t about making a bigger or better meatball…it is about celebrating and being hyper-aware of the process of making the meatball to begin with. Know who is going to eat the darn things…let everyone be part of the test kitchen.

Messaging as an exercise and a framework has long been flawed. It is one of the reasons I wrote my latest Best Practices paper with Constellation. We all know that brand messaging is core to how a brand communicates to customers, partners and even employees. In these “unprecedented times,” we have an opportunity to think and engage differently. In the paper, I've outlined some steps I have deployed with clients across every shape and size of brand, all around the world, to help them land on better messages that help differentiate as much as they resonate with customers and internal teams. I've also pointed out some folks I think have done a great job...and some examples of friends who need some help.  The new paper, Death of a Messaging Framework is available now…free of charge as a resource for executives hoping to…well…build a better meatball.Mangia!

2020 SuperNova Award Finalists Announced

Elle DeRosa

Director of Marketing, Communications & Operations
Constellation Research

Elle is the Director of Marketing at Constellation Research and producer of the weekly enterprise tech show, DisrupTV. She leads marketing and communications efforts across all avenues while also managing an array of programs including the SuperNova Awards, Business Transformation 150, AX100, AI150, S50 and ShortLists. She has previous experience in public relations and has a strong passion for the marketing world. Contact Elle at [email protected] ...

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We are thrilled to announce the finalists for our tenth annual SuperNova Awards! This year’s finalists are top-notch leaders & teams implementing disruptive and innovative technology initiatives across the board.

It’s time to narrow down the finalists and choose the winners. But first we need your help! The polls open on August 10 and close on September 4, make sure you cast your votes for your favorite finalists in each category.

The winners will be announced at Constellation’s Connected Enterprise on October 28, 2020. Constellation analysts will reveal the winners during the SuperNova Awards Gala, which will be held on the second night of Connected Enterprise. Should we have a health-related cancellation, we will also be running a virtual award ceremony in parallel.
 

Here are this year’s finalists…
 

2020 SuperNova Award Finalists

AI and Augmented Humanity

• Hagen Wenzek, Corporate Health International
• André Monteiro, Acordo Certo
• Alex Yupaanqui, Espressive on behalf of anonymous company
• Sandor Caetano, iFood

Data to Decisions

• Sherrie Caltagirone, Global Emancipation Network
• Farukh Aslam, Marriott International
• Dan Jeavons, Shell
• Aniruddh Srivastava, Mahindra & Mahindra
• Matthew Ernst, Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health
• Andrew Mason, NHS Business Services Authority

Data-Driven Digital Networks (DDNs) and Business Models

• Dr. Jianzong Wang, Ping An Technology
• Todd Scott, IBM
• Jacques van Niekerk Michael Murray Adam Woods & David Bartram-Shaw, Wunderman Thompson

Digital Marketing and Sales Effectiveness

• Marilyn Wichhart, Kyle Kramer and Tod Hilton, Pella Corporation
• Karl Alexander, Crown Bees
• Michelle Vaughan, New Relic

Digital Safety, Governance, and Privacy

• Abra Le, Cisco
• Brittany Woods, CARFAX: Automation Insights and Compliance Validation with Chef and ServiceNow
• Nick Tavenier, Pattern Energy Group

Future of Work - Employee Experience

• Joanna ?lubowska, Hycom S.A.
• Sari Daisey, The Bancorp
• Olivia Liu, Commonwealth Care Alliance
• Elizabeth Volini , JLL
• Cheryl Coleman, Red Hat
• Jason James, Net Health

Future of Work: Human Capital Management

• Gavin Flynn, Danone
• Carmine Granucci, Boston University
• Eddie Safille, Arc Broward
• Marco Klein, TRUMPF

Next-Generation Customer Experience

• Mark Felix , Allen Brothers
• Petr Luksan, Gojoko
• Gabriele Ricci, Takeda
• Jacques van Niekerk, Michael Murray, Adam Woods & David Bartram-Shaw, Wunderman Thompson
• Mary Hodge, Mayor & Fund for Los Angeles
• Ayman Taha, TruGreen

Tech Optimization and Modernization

• Matthew Ernst , Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health
• Michael Kennedy , Muscular Dystrophy Association
• Ralph Esquibel, Los Angeles Dodgers
• Todd Treonze, Brooks Brothers
• Steve McEnany, Midwest Wheel Companies, Inc.
• Tania Zieja, Halloran Consulting Group
• Dan Lewis , City of Seattle - Seattle IT Department
• Petar Bojovic, Blue Cross Blue Shield, North Carolina
• Christine Radke, Siemens

The 2020 SuperNova Award judges, comprised of technology thought leaders and journalists, selected finalists who demonstrated success in implementing leading-edge business models and emerging technologies for their organizations.

Were you named a finalist? Learn how to register for Connected Enterprise, get more information about the public polling, and more. Check the SuperNova Award Finalist Resources page here.

Managing Crisis: The Power of Community and Importance of Experts

Watching the myriad responses to the pandemic unfold, the power of communities and the importance of experts have, time and again, proven themselves to be indispensable tools for dealing with the unexpected and unprecedented.

We could discuss these two factors at length in any number of contexts (more than happy to!), but I’d like to focus here on how they’re playing out when it comes to managing the resources that underpin customer experience.

Because this is the reality: every business has had to make changes in response to a scale and speed of change that nobody had foreseen. Some have tackled the happy challenges of dealing with unanticipated growth. Others have faced a dramatic slowdown—or even complete halt—in business. Most have found themselves somewhere in between, managing major shifts in the way they operate while waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering how long it will take.

No matter the circumstances, businesses have been grappling with the fundamental need to maintain customer relationships while managing sometimes severe resource constraints. Drawing on help from a wider community, supported by guidance from experts, has been—and will continue to be—a lifeline.

Two companies I’ve been watching offer great examples of providing that larger community and expert guidance: Telus International and Strategic Blue. Both organizations manage critical resources that enable businesses to support and interact with their own customers.

Phone a Friend

Telus International, a subsidiary of Canadian telecommunications company Telus, provides global contact center outsourcing along with a range of consulting and technology implementation services focused on customer experience. I’ve been consistently impressed by Telus International’s tremendous focus on understanding what drives the best customer experiences. This continuous learning extends through everything the company does. Direct experience gained from interacting with customers informs its advisory and implementation services; likewise, expertise from the technology side gets applied to improving customer-facing operations.

Telus International endeavors to act as an extension of its customers’ own teams. To such an extent, in fact, that the company evaluates and hires contact center agents for individual customer accounts, and often specific departments within those accounts. Agents supporting an audio book service, for example, are hired based on their interest in books and literature. There’s an expectation that no matter the initial reason for a conversation, at some point the discussion will turn to recommendations on what to listen to next. (One agent had a customer named Caryn who kept coming back to her for recommendations…and sounded suspiciously like the agent’s favorite narrator, Whoopi Goldberg…) The result for customers communicating with those agents is a seamless experience that feels like an integral, almost intimate part of the company they’re contacting.

Such an intentional emphasis on building distinct teams for individual companies makes the way Telus International managed responses to the pandemic all the more remarkable. Some steps the company took were simply optimum examples of necessary action. Telus International moved 22,000 agents from on-site to remote work within 22 days. Nearly 40,000 employees around the world are working remotely. Almost immediately, all of the agent performance measures went up. Ah, the dividends of having both the technology infrastructure and cohesive work culture to make that transition successful.

For Telus International’s customers, the benefits were obvious: little if any disruption to customer service operations. But for customers experiencing dramatic increases or decreases in demand, the situation was different. For example, travel and hospitality saw an initial spike in customer service requests but a significant drop in business and customer service requirements. In contrast, companies in gaming and delivery services, for example, saw surges in new customers and customer service volume. Telus International has worked with all of its customers to maintain consistent quality of customer service and to minimize any negative impacts on individual agents.

The result is that Telus International has, in contrast to its standard policy, rapidly redeployed agents across accounts and departments where necessary and appropriate, and with the agreement of the affected customers. In one case, two of Telus International’s customers who are direct competitors even agreed to sharing or moving agents between them when it made sense. Unusual, to say the least. Telus International’s customers have had the benefit of rapid scaling up or down of agent capacity based on their needs, along with the assurance that new-to-them agents have the guidance and tools they need to operate effectively.

For Telus International and its agents, any negative impact has been minimal as a result of this ability to adapt quickly. And again, all of the metrics that measure customer satisfaction and agent productivity have gone up. Perhaps ironically, customer experiences have actually improved through all of this turmoil.

Safety in Numbers

Strategic Blue provides services in a category you likely did not even know exists—cloud brokerage. As a cloud broker, Strategic Blue combines the monitoring capabilities of a cloud management platform with advisory services to optimally plan and provision cloud computing resources. Crucially, the company also takes on the financial risk of those contracts on behalf of its customers. In so doing, Strategic Blue becomes an intermediary that has access to a wider set of pricing options with public cloud providers on one side and the ability to tailor contractual terms to meet the needs of individual businesses on the other.

The ways in which Strategic Blue’s services influence customer experience may not be obvious, but they are certainly important. Cloud computing capacity directly underpins websites and commerce sites, among others—significant elements of any customer journey. All the more so in today’s environment where a business that isn’t operating online probably isn’t operating.

Those same cloud computing resources also power significant elements of the analytics and other operational capabilities supporting marketing, sales, and customer service. In all of these cases, sufficient cloud compute resources impact the performance of those capabilities. That’s been a bigger challenge for many companies as digital channels and all things online have swiftly come to dominate both customer interactions and internal operations.

While the beauty of public cloud infrastructure is the ability to rapidly scale it up and down as required, that ability comes at a cost. To my mind, one of the most valuable aspects of what Strategic Blue provides its customers is the ability to anticipate, manage, and minimize the costs involved. This ability derives directly from both the company’s expertise in cloud financial management and the fact that it operates across the mutual interests of its entire customer base. In other words, the community it serves.

Thus far, some of Strategic Blue’s customers have been interested in trading what has become excess capacity. For the most part, however, cloud usage has increased. Many have been dealing with unexpected increases in demand for resources, as a result of business growth, a shift toward greater business transactions online, or both. Going forward, however, the biggest concern for many is the inability to predict how things will change over the near to medium term. One trend the broker has seen is a willingness to increase contract duration rather than prepay up front.

Strategic Blue has also taken up the cause of supporting both researchers and local communities to fight COVID-19 with access to cloud computing capacity. Along with several other private companies and public research institutions, the Cloud Fund to Fight COVID-19 is providing resources to researchers in advance of funding for individual projects being secured. The hope is to further accelerate essential work toward treatments and possible vaccines.

The Road Ahead

As we move from managing crisis to navigating a prolonged period of uncertainty, maintaining durable customer relationships remains the best strategy for success. That requires a range of tools to ensure flexibility and adaptability.

Whether you realize it or not, the technology and service companies you choose to work with are communities. As a customer, you become part of them. Choose your partners wisely, and you get not only the benefits of that wider community but also the advantages of expert guidance. These partners see trends across their customer bases. The good ones use that to your advantage.

Community and expertise have always been valuable. Today, they’re indispensable.

Tuesday's Tip: Virtual Meeting Best Practices

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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Crowdsourced Best Practices Reflect Work From Home Constraints

The shift to remote work and work from home often involves a virtual meeting. Core to that virtual meeting is the video call, which adds a little bit of complexity in meetings. Constellation sees best practices across four phases of the video call - audio visual setup, prepping before the call, actions while on the call, and post call followup:

AV setup

The audio-visual set up often requires participants to find a quiet and well-lit space with good wi-fi connectivity. Here are some tips to ensure a high quality experience:

1. Put your camera/laptop at eye level
2. Turn on the camera
3. Light up your face.
4. Avoid having light behind you (windows)
5. Eliminate distracting movements from camera view
6. Test audio, consider a high quality microphone

Prepping before the call

Given the constraints of space and room environment (i.e. kids, location, soundproofing, etc.), expectations have been relaxed on meeting norms. However, the following best practices can improve the meeting experience:

1. Set expectations on not apologizing for unexpected distractions
2. Set norms on voice only vs video only
3. Don't be late
4. Wear clothes (appropriate clothes)
5. Close the office door
6. WD40 your squeaky chair.

During the call

To improve interaction and engagement, keep the following tips in mind to ensure an enjoyable meeeting:

1. Mute when not speaking
2. Look into the camera when speaking and sit still
3. Don't eat while on the call
4. Avoid obvious multitasking
5. Get good at interrupting
6. Use the chat features and polling
7. Don't pick up your machine and walk with the camera on
8. Avoid picking at your face
9. Smile

Post Call

Post call practices focus on archiving and followup. Gather feedback to improve the next meeting dynamics:

1. Followup with notes
2. Distribute or host the recording
3. Get feedback

Thank You Twitter Brain Trust

Always thankful for the diversity of thought among the Twittersphere. The following folks contributed to the best practices. Thank you!

• Alan Lepofsky (@alanlepo )
• @billforquer Bill Forquer
• @brianoliger Brian Oliger
• @dalytics Doug Hadden
• @eric_kavanagh Eric Kavanagh
• @jesus_hoyos Jesus Hoyos
• @johnshansen John S Hansen
• @jonas419 Dan Goldberg
• @luborp Lubor Ptacek
• @mdalton323 Mark Dalton
• @MontgomeryKen Ken Montgomery
• @neeraj Neeraj Mathur
• @realcolinmac Colin McGuire
• @reichental Jonathan Reichental
• @thebillp Bill Petersen
• @walevska Walevska PérezHerrera
• @wantnews Want News

Monday's Musings: The Death of Density As A Business Model And What To Do About It

R "Ray" Wang

Principal Analyst and Founder
Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and blogs at www.raywang.org. His ground-breaking best-selling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray's new book about Digital Giants and the future of business, titled, Everybody Wants to Rule The World was released in July 2021. Wang is well-quoted and frequently interviewed by media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Cheddar, and Bloomberg. Short Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. He…...

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Density Is Dead! (At least for now)

The Covid-19 acceleration to digital business models has ushered an era where before coronavirus (BC) business models built on human density will struggle to survive.  Those models relied on high volumes and dense environments to scale and drive profitability.  Unfortunately, concerns over public health have curtailed these businesses until a reduction in new cases or effective treatment and vaccines are readily available.

In the meantime, industries such as retail, restaurants, transportation, live events, and gyms face massive challenges.  For example, in the retail industry, the key performance metric has been profit per square foot or meter.  The goal has been how much profit can be generated from space? For restaurants and other venues such as bars and clubs, how many customers can one pack into a space and how many turns can one get a day?  These all required physical volume and a human being present.  As public health rules create capacity constraints via social distancing and health codes, the ability to put a 100 people in a store or restaurant may require 50% to 60% more space for both customers and employees to feel safe.  The capacity limits at every physical location will be reduced and cost per square feet calculations must be adjusted.

In the travel and entertainment industry, operators face the same constraint where airlines measure profit per revenue mile. That has led to the cramming of more seats in less spaces, whether a plane, train, or bus service.  In fact mass transit is under attack as commuters fear cramped conditions and transmission spread.   Meanwhile, the entire $1.4 trillion live events business, from professional sports, live entertainment, and mega conferences face the fear of hosting a super spreader event.  Every entertainment venue, who used to pack in thousands into physical spaces, is in trouble as the shift to digital streaming lowers margins and does not deliver the same in-person experience.  The after Covid-19 (AC) world will look different, for awhile.  Density as a business model can no longer be relied on.

Post Pandemic Business Models Must Account For Four Mega Trends

Over the past four months, the world has witnessed and participate in the world’s largest and longest shared reality experience.  A few mega trends that negatively impact business models built on density will persist in the post pandemic era:

• Remote work and work from home options are here to stay.  Most non-essential workers, about 37% of the workforce, have the luxury to avoid coming into the physical office.  With increased productivity for many industries, the persistent prevalence of Covid-19, and the success of remote work and work from home technologies and policies, recent surveys show most organizations will provide options for varying levels of remote work and work from home for the next few years.  These trends will negatively impact ancillary businesses such as restaurants and bars, retail shops, transit, and entertainment venues for some time.  Expect a continued reduction of business travel to 50% of pre-Covid-19 highs.  TSA counts of passengers per day through airports have barely passed 25% of the before Covid-19 (BC) highs in the 2.6 million passengers per day.
• Mass shift of real estate holdings will move from high density – high cost to low density – low cost. High commercial rents for store fronts and Class A space will take their biggest hits in four decades.  With a population exodus gaining traction, many businesses will shift to less dense areas to find more space and cheaper rents.  Rent reductions may keep a smaller but more loyal core of customers in dense urban cores.  Businesses will follow and build facilities to drive down fixed costs to support less dense business models.  However, the workforce exodus to follow the jobs will emerge as the likely scenario.  Business models that rely on physical presence and density must reduce their cost structures.
• Automation will drive down labor costs and address potential labor shortages.  Expect an initial shortage of labor in less dense environments as population migration accelerates.  Simultaneously, the artificially high cost of urban labor rates via minimum wage laws and other city based taxes will accelerate automation.  Increased regulation will hasten the adoption of AI and Automation. 
• Avoiding human contact must always be an option.  The lack of etiology or understanding of disease transmission for Covid-19, continued prevalence of asymptomatic spread, and the long-term health impact to symptomatic survivors scares the general public.   Many individuals fear spreading the disease to an at-risk loved one.  Companies who do not have a back up to physical channels will suffer significant revenue loss and consumer trust.

Shift To Digital Requires Different Approach

• Accept that an exodus from dense urban cores will continue.  Space is the new sign of wealth.  Anecdotal real estate showings, school enrollment inquiries, and aggregate tracking of cellphone location data suggest a  growing shift to less dense suburbs.  Families and workers need more residential spaces.  The ability to work from home frees workers from the tethers to metropolitan areas.  Add a sense of insecurity with the rise in crime and the declining quality of life in dense urban areas, a potential mass exodus similar to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s is evolving. 
  
  Families want newer homes, yards, parks, and better schools with a lower cost of living.  Anticipate the creation of new exurbs clustered around suburbs as developments in autonomous vehicles advance towards Level 5 full autonomy enabling greater mobility without mass transit. Organizations will need to shift their center of operations closer to highways and suburbs and away from mass transit and dense urban centers for the occasional office meeting or event.
   
• Embrace automation everywhere in the shift to autonomy.  Supporting less density will require a move to more automation.  This automation will usher in the autonomous age.  Automation will reduce labor costs and will enable more autonomy for those in less dense environments.  Simultaneously, the artificially high cost of urban labor rates via minimum wage laws will accelerate adoption of automation.   Fast food restaurants have accelerated kiosks with the advent of higher minimum wages. 
  
  Both automation and AI will play a role in driving down the cost of labor, improving the quality of work, and mitigating risk from human errors.  Organization must answer the four questions to identify where AI driven automation will make the most sense (see Figure 1).
   
• Design for a contactless world.  Contactless channels are the new black. While fashionable and pragmatic, every customer experience will provide a design option to avoid human contact.  Businesses and customers will accelerate their adoption of digital channels and contactless models. 
  
  Moreover, organizations must develop digital capabilities that support online orders, arrangements for in facility dining reservation, curbside pickups, scheduled delivery windows, automated returns, and cashless transactions. 

Figure 1. The Four Questions Asked of Every Business Process and Journey In An Autonomous Age

The Bottom Line: Embrace The Death of Density And The Rise Of Digital Monetization

Reducing Team Communications Silos to Rapidly Increase Usability, Adoption, and Lower Support Costs

Dion Hinchcliffe

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Title: About Dion Hinchcliffe Dion Hinchcliffe is an internationally recognized business strategist, bestselling author, enterprise architect, industry analyst, and noted keynote speaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in digital strategy, the future of work, and enterprise IT. He works with the leadership teams of large enterprises as well as software vendors to raise the bar for the art-of-the-possible in their digital capabilities. He is currently Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. Dion is also currently an executive fellow at the Tuck School of Business Center for Digital Strategies. He is a globally recognized industry expert on the topics of digital transformation, digital workplace, enterprise collaboration, API…...

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Earlier in 2020, many organizations suddenly found themselves in a relatively precarious position when it came to rapidly connecting their workers together almost entirely using digital communications tools. COVID-19 had arrived without much upfront warning and subsequent stay-at-home strategies rapidly dispersed worker populations to their homes around the globe for the foreseeable future.

Organizations now needed the best digital communications tools not only available for their far-flung talent base but situated as effectively as possible for their newly remote workers to remain, and in many cases become even more, productive. However, all of this arrived at an already dynamic time in the industry.

Communications Silos Continue to Significantly Plague Workers

While most enterprise had already accumulated a long and growing list of such communications tools, the technical solutions themselves had been undergoing a major shift of their own just before the pandemic arrived. For the first time in decades, e-mail was shifting into newer, more immediate channels like team chat, while voice was well under way in its steady migration to new online meeting services that also served up video, especially when point-to-point calls weren’t involved.

Popular new solutions like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Slack had also emerged on the scene in the last few years and were widely perceived as more modern, more usable, and effective. A broad shift to these platforms was thus in progress and many organizations had moved to them, even though individually these new tools only served some of the new digital communications modes — like group video calls — that workers and businesses sought. 

Complicating matters, many of these tools were not even 1-to-1 replacements with each other in many cases. Yet these more consumerized, easier-to-use, and richer options were found compelling by many, driving demand and continued change, even if they often accumulated around the edges, and so didn’t form the center of gravity for their daily communications.

Our research over the years has shown that the digital communications experience has grown ever more fragmented and complex, to the considerable detriment of effective engagement and collaboration both between workers and between them and other key stakeholders such as customers or partners/suppliers.

For years now, some of the biggest productivity killers — ranked at the very top in certain studies —  is getting workers to understand how to actually use the growing wealth of communications tools at their disposal. Making the extensive and ever-growing IT investments accessible to workers — who are turning over more than ever before in the workplace — is a growing hurdle around the world. Business want their workers using the latest, most effective technologies, yet workers need more education, support, and enablement to ensure these investments are actually being used.

A Better Way to ROI with Digital Communications

However, instead of costly training and ongoing support, our work with large scale digital workplace strategies and employee communication technology rollouts over the years has shown that there is actually an easier way most of the time.

Enterprises can situate today’s powerful new communications tools together, while integrating them more seamlessly into the center of the worker experience so that these channels work together with each other whenever possible. This can be in a worker’s main communications application, virtual desktop, or mobile device, or wherever it makes the most sense. Such integration efforts were difficult and/or costly in years past, but today most organizations live in a time where such systems can be connected together into new user experiences more quickly and inexpensively than ever before.

One major gap in the digital workplace has been between the latest generation of communications or meetings tools and long-standing infrastructure like public or corporate telephone networks. Workers generally seek to use the latest meeting tools like Microsoft Teams, which has been experiencing near-runaway growth in 2020. Yet they then struggle to include those participants in digital sessions, especially if they are outside the company and aren’t yet trained on newer solutions like Teams.

It is therefore very useful — ideal even — to treat traditional phone networks as first class citizens within these new tools. In fact, our research finds significant ROI, on the order of double digits in many cases, across the spectrum of benefits in offering workers a more integrated communications experience. The key is in ensuring that as many communications channels are integrated as native, first-class citizens in a primary hub or in existing communications/meeting solutions.

As we’ve seen recently with the advent of new capabilities like high quality PSTN integration into Microsoft Teams as a seamless extension of the platform, organizations can now significantly streamline and improve the digital communications experience for most workers. There is a whole raft of attendant benefits which are of particular importance now that the majority of work must be carried out within these tools during remote work/working from home. 

The Value of More Integrated Communications

The overall benefits of a more integrated worker communications experience are:

• Higher adoption of communications solutions. Organizations can ensure their workers are getting the value out of enterprise investments in digital communications by making them seamlessly integrate more a single solution that is available where workers are already focusing their largest share of communications time.
• Improved productivity. When workers aren’t trying to figure out how to connect people together using different communication endpoints or sorting out the least common denominator, they can spend more time getting work done. Integrating different channels with common modalities (like enabling all voice technologies to connect to all other voice technologies) makes a huge difference in helping worker focus on their job instead of their tools.
• Less training/support. When a fewer number of digital communications tools are used that support a wider variety of channels, including legacy ones, workers almost always benefit. They have higher skill levels with those tools since they use them more. They also have fewer problems finding the right communications tool, and need less support in troubleshooting their communications experience in general.
• More team cohesion. The remote work environment of today is different than when remote work was an occasional activity for most people. Remote work can be isolating and spreading workers across more channels and tools makes it even harder for them to stay engaged with each other. Bringing digital meetings together with public phone systems, for example, ensures everyone can participate in meeting sessions, without complex rituals to get people dialed in, for example. Workers spend more time together with an integrated communications experience and are less frustrated or stressed when doing so.
• Less cognitive overload. Human resources teams have long worried about the complexity of today’s IT landscape, and for good reason: When too much mental effort needs to be put into finding the right tools and/or channel to communicate in, the quality of work itself suffers. Creating more centralized, streamlined, and usable communication experiences can offload workers to focus better on their business activities.
• Lower operational costs. Many of the benefits above translate into cost savings: Workers are more productive, quality is higher, and mistakes are fewer when usability is improved, teams function together better, training and support overhead is lower, and so on. The key to gaining these benefits is not to acquire more point communications solutions and roll them out to workers, but instead think about them in a more organized and consumption-focused way.

The key to gaining these benefits is not to acquire more point communications solutions and roll them out to workers, but instead think about them in a more organized and consumption-focused way. 

The primary question is this: How can we make today’s digital channels and legacy communications tools work better together in a more cohesive way that lets workers focus on the communication itself, rather than the technologies and tools that underly them? If IT and communications teams that focus on enablement and usability through better underlying integration of communication tools, they will produce eminently more satisfied workers and better business results. 

The Return on a More Integrated Communications Experience for Digital Workers from Digital Enterprise Today on Vimeo.

Additional Reading

Reimagining the Post-2020 Employee Experience: A Comprehensive Blueprint

It's Time to Think About the Post-2020 Employee Experience

How Work Will Evolve in a Digital Post-Pandemic Society

Revisiting How to Cultivate Connected Organizations in an Age of Coronavirus

My 2020 Predictions for the Future of Work

A Checklist for a Modern Core Digital Workplace and/or Intranet

Creating the Modern Digital Workplace and Employee Experience

The Challenging State of Employee Experience and Digital Workplace Today

Welcome to the digital workplace hub | ZDNet

What I Miss: Event Report From A Grounded Marketer

Liz Miller

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

About Liz Miller: Liz Miller is Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation, focused on the org-wide team sport known as customer experience. While covering CX as an enterprise strategy, Miller spends time zeroing in on the functional demands of Marketing and Service and the evolving role of the Chief Marketing Officer, the rise of the Chief Experience Officer, the evolution of customer engagement, and the rising requirement for a new security posture that accounts for the threat to brand trust in this age of AI. With over 30 years of marketing experience, Miller offers strategic guidance on the leadership, business transformation, and technology requirements to deliver on today’s CX strategies. She has worked with global marketing organizations to transform everything from…...

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It started innocently enough. It was a funny tweet from a wife musing about her husband going to a virtual conference.

“My spouse is "attending" a virtual conference for the next few days. To help simulate the real thing, I'll set out a picked-over tray of mini-muffins, soggy cut fruit, and some weak coffee, and then whisk them away just as he approaches the table.”

The replies were almost as hysterical as the original post, adding key “conference must-haves”:

• Announce the conference Wi-Fi code…then randomly restart the router all day
• Switch the temperature of the room from freezing cold to super-hot without warning
• Meet him at the bottom of the stairs with a garbage bag full of random papers, a book and a couple reusable water bottles…eagerly call it the swag bag while pretending to “beep” his badge
• Announce the keynote will be delivered in the bedroom…upon arrival inform him the room is full and the overflow room is in the garage
• Turn on a radio or TV VERY loudly in the next room to simulate the too-loud session that sounds FAR more fun than the session he is watching

My contributions included ensuring that tiny bowls of plastic wrapped candy of no known brand that taste like fruity plastic are randomly placed on his desk…and leave out a sign announcing there is “plenty of seating in the back”…then remove every chair from the house.

By the time I sat down to write this post, the language acquisition researcher who just posted a joke about her husband had received thousands of comments, over 100.5 thousand likes, and nearly 10 thousand retweets with no signs of slowing down.

Case study in viral social commentary…sure. Case study in what we, still in the grips of the COVID-19 event lockdown, are really missing about attending live events…ABSOLUTELY!

In the shift from live to virtual events, many of us have lamented that we miss the moments…the chance run-ins with colleagues we haven’t seen in forever, the debates and dialogues that can overflow from session to hallway to drinks at the bar. We call it dreamy words like “happenstance” and “kismet” as we reminisce about the “last event we attended,” the memory still thick and intoxicating.

Meanwhile, over in event-planning-land, show producers have a real problem on their hands. How do they meet the business goals that large user groups, events, conferences and trade shows achieved in a totally virtual format? How do they keep the lead funnel moving, the community connections cranking, and prospects engaged and excited?

I am just going to say it: More events are failing in their reinventions than succeeding, completely missing the point of WHY events had been successful in the past. If Covid-19 has ushered in a new age of all virtual events, I’d like to request my one-way ticket off navel-gazing island, please.

So HOW do we start to turn these around? Here are a couple tips from someone on the verge of burning out on the fumes of conferences of the past crashing into the virtual events of today:

• Lean IN to the absurdity. Let that be the first “joke” everyone is in on. Everyone understands this is the “new normal”…that this isn’t “what you had originally planned.” We get it. Let down your guard and have fun with it all. Show people you are in shorts and fuzzy slippers. Show off that light ring that gives us video FOMO and what your bookshelf looked like BEFORE you turned it into a rainbow. Offer moments of live engagement…time for the audience to get involved and share thoughts, ask questions or just send over a shout out they would have normally seen in that hallway. The fun and joy of our customers attending events doesn’t need to disappear just because we can't toss a beach ball around the keynote…we just need rethink what fun and joy feel like now...and then work harder to empower it.
• Engagement and connection aren’t the same. Engagement is repeatable, iterative and simultaneously flexible. It is what we marketers have spent an LOT of time perfecting and automating. That isn’t the same as making a connection. Engagements can be interesting, entertaining and memorable, but they might not create the sticky center that leads to connection. Virtual events need to address both…the opportunities to engage in ways that are meaningful and tangible AND how to turn those moments into longer lasting and more durable connections. Navel-gazing is a by-product of focusing on what you want to engage with and forgetting that forging connections isn't just about you...connections are about the customers, prospects and the community that is engaging with you and with eachother thanks to you.
• Embrace “winkable" moments. Something will go wrong…hello winkable moment! Something unexpected will happen...hello winkable moment! Just like in live events, virtual events are cursed to have the unexpected be the event planner’s expectation. Power goes out. Internet quality is terrible. The platform stopped accepting attendees. Earthquakes will strike. Things will implode. No point in pretending that virtual means virtually perfect. Let the bumps and bruises show…it can actually be a great moment to make that connection even more memorable and lasting. Let the unexpected happen too. Let the community talk about themselves...even if it is in that "useless" stream of "Hi from ...because remember...this isn't about you and you alone. 
• A lead isn’t a lead any more. Too many events redefined the experience but didn’t redefine how that experience fits into the overarching business strategy. They just made the swap..but that just isn’t how it works. Before you plan, take the time to redefine the vocabulary of success and measures. Talk about how to rethink leads while you rethink keynotes. Yes…instead of the 50,000 you could accommodate in a live session, you had a MILLION! WHOOT WHOOT! But now what? How are those million different? Do they need to be managed and handled differently to accommodate for their new context? 

• The world isn't everyone's stage. If you thought your execs were going to be better on video than on stage…think again. Most executives who dread stage time will LOATHE virtual stage time because the fruits of their performance is quite literally staring them in the face. I think of the advice Matthew Halliday included in his assessment of presentation as performance -- read his great post here -- and your executive speakers need to be coached and encouraged as performers, not presenters. If a speaker isn’t comfortable in a traditional presentation on stage, that isn’t magically going away on video. So rethink! Have a chat instead of something planned and canned. By focusing on the comfort and comfort zone of your presenters you are inherently focusing on the experience and engagement you will deliver in the output as opposed to the video and powerpoint input you prepared.

We aren’t missing the swag bags (OK...my toddler daughter is missing the swag bag), the long lines for lunch or even the never ending quest to find the the bathroom. We are missing being insiders on the jokes, the sneaks, the announcements and the zinger hard questions. We are missing the shared war-stories from our peers…being inspired by people in our shoes. We want to hear from our people who tried, failed, got back up and nailed it. We want to see the PEOPLE we buy from…to know that the monolithic vendors are actually smart, funny, relatable and utterly human with mistakes, flubs and nervousness included. 

We are missing the serendipity of it all – the moments of chance that end in something abundantly beneficial. We are missing the humanity of connection. We miss knowing we are with our people.

We may never know how a certain spouse fared getting into the driveway cab line to beat the rush. What we DO know and can completely embrace is that we miss it all…especially that winkable moment when the absurdity of it sinks in and we are standing on the level playing field known as our own kitchens wondering when they are going to put out the “good” afternoon snacks.